EAST RUTHERFORD — Lost in thought and layered in pain, Chris Snee endured a quiet return trip from another awful football Sunday, barely speaking to anyone during the bus-to-plane journey that would take him home. No matter how many angles he took on the internal debate waging in his head, whatever mental avenue he took to try and convince himself otherwise, Snee knew it was time to listen to the message his body was sending.

The Giants’ 38-0 Week 3 loss in Carolina proved to be the last game Snee would play this season. The heftiest bill for the price of 10 hard years in the NFL was about to come due, putting his hip and his elbow under a surgeon’s knife.

“I knew that I had a bigger [injury] issue, maybe one that I couldn’t play through. I came in here the next day, and [head trainer] Ronnie [Barnes] could see it on my face, I was in pain and I couldn’t do anything about it,” Snee said in a long conversation this week. “I’ve always been accountable, but I couldn’t do it.”

Snee would land on injured reserve; the Giants would continue a descent into a football wasteland. And now, as the final weeks of the season wind down, the man and his franchise are searching for answers. Whether Snee returns to his offensive guard position depends plenty on finances and desire, but nothing can happen until he knows if he’s healthy enough to get back on the field. His hip is fine, but a more extensive elbow surgery than anticipated has put him on a tough rehab road. After one season of helplessness, is he really ready to set himself up for the prospect of more?

“You have to think about what lies ahead, if you can handle it. Some years it’s a quick decision, you’re like ‘absolutely.’ Then some years you think a little bit longer. But in fairness to everyone here I will think about it when I’m healthy. I’m not at that point yet,” he said. “You have to think, ‘Can my body handle it?’ The love is not the question. I love this game and always will. If I could play 10 more years I would. But you have to think about yourself for a change, if you physically can do it. Obviously with the physical part comes the mental issues I had to deal with this year and the emotional part of not being able to help.

“What if you come back and you’re in the same situation?”

Snee wants no part of reliving what happened in Carolina. He couldn’t get into his stance without waiting for the audible, painful pop that meant the cartilage stuck in his right hip joint had moved. He couldn’t extend his right arm to meet his left, cut short three inches by the collection of bone chips nestled in his elbow, ones that were also crushing a nerve and leaving him with bouts of numbness. The more he fought through the pain, the more his body compensated, which left him with aches in his back, pains in his previously repaired left hip.

His body needed help. But the Giants needed help. He needed surgery. The Giants needed roster spots. For the first time since the Giants drafted him just one round after the franchise quarterback he was picked to protect, Snee was no longer part of the answer. A lost soul in the middle of a lost franchise, he called out of a Friday morning meeting with his position group, forced to accept the move to IR.

“I knew it was coming but still when [GM] Jerry [Reese] called me out and I had the talk with him, it was tough to handle,” Snee said. “You have a lot of things going through your mind.”

Snee headed straight to the weight room, punishing his elbow to the point of swelling, using familiar aggression to push through his frustration. An injury-shortened season is a difficult sentence for any professional athlete. Snee is no different. He wanted desperately to help his flailing team, but couldn’t. He gave in. And in his absence, the Giants eventually did, too.

Even before the ninth loss of the season Sunday against the Seahawks, mathematical elimination from the playoffs had already forced the Giants’ conversation toward the future. Did this team overestimate mediocre talent or underperform with good enough players? Nowhere is the question bigger than along the offensive line. In a season of bad performances, the line play against Seattle was arguably the worst, leaving Eli Manning in a crumpled mess.

And thus begins the delicate dance. Snee’s cap number is too high to handle, and Reese is going to have to negotiate his way out of it. But Snee is no ordinary business deal, not with a coach who doubles as his father-in-law. There is no doubt Tom Coughlin wants Snee back, and not because of a family connection. Coughlin lost more than a four-time Pro Bowler in Snee; he lost a leader, a veteran, a trusted locker room example. Throughout the season, the two men interact primarily as coach-player, with Coughlin’s demanding schedule allowing for precious little family time anyway. But even when they do manage to squeeze in a Friday night family pizza party, the details of Snee’s struggles are rarely shared.

“To step back away from it and look at him and see what kind of pain he’s in, that’s not a good thing,” Coughlin said. “But you have to understand this business. There’s no acknowledgment of weakness. None. And either from my standpoint or his, you don’t talk about it.”

If Snee has opened up any weak spot in his devotion to football, it is the time this injury has given him at home. The father of three active boys who had grown accustomed to hearing “dad’s too sore” when they wanted to play, are now used to seeing dad behind the wheel for school dropoff, to seeing dad on the sideline for travel soccer championships and Central Park ice hockey games.

“The one thing I did realize is I’ll be OK when I’m done playing,” he said. “Do I get antsy on Sunday? Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s telling me there’s some fire left. I really don’t know what to do.”

Like the Giants he plays for, the future is uncertain.Email: sullivan@northjersey.com